New Small Press: More Nature, Less Cowshit

Launching a new small press in 2010 might be thought by some to be a dubious adventure. We are still caught in the downdrafts of The Great Recession with consumers holding tight to their wallets, publishers retrenching, newspapers fast shutting down and independent bookstores closing. I think it might be fun and instructive, at least in hindsight, to share our thoughts and aspirations about starting up in this environment. Later we can look back and see how our ideas turn out, either how visionary we were or how naive and well meaning but misguided we were.

I have a history of getting started in a dying industry. Right out of high school in 1974 I went to work for a summer job for a start-up company, Documation, Inc., where my father had been recruited to help get the place going. Documation was building better, faster, cheaper IBM card readers at a time when everyone already knew IBM cards were going the way of the dinosaur. Yet, many large companies and institutions were still using the cards and needed readers. The new card readers found a neglected market, Documation soon reached $100 million in sales and went public. I bought stock, financed my college career with the proceeds and changed majors from engineering to finance because the stock market part of the thing was so fascinating. Most of my subsequent career happily ended up in investment management with Wasatch Advisors, Inc. in Salt Lake City. Dinosaurs can make good stepping stones.

Our mission at Torrey House Press, LLC, is to increase awareness of and appreciation for the land, history, people, economy, and cultures of the Colorado Plateau and the American West through the power of pen and story.(See the website at www.torreyhouse.com.) I retired from Wasatch Advisors at the end of 1999. That same year I finished up building a second home in Torrey, Utah and proceeded to get to know the red rock country around Capitol Reef National Park better. I loved the clear air, the mix of desert canyon and alpine plateaus and forests. The vistas were ever more amazing and every turn and the light show was constant with sunrises and sunsets, thunderstorms and blazing, starry nights. I loved the fact, and still do, that there was no stoplight in all of Wayne County where Torrey is. But early on I noticed that all was not what it could be in paradise. I noticed on hikes all the constant, pervasive damage that cows cause to the meadows and forests, how non-stop irrigation of alfalfa drained and polluted the tiny desert rivers and streams, and how year after year the air became ever more hazy. The thought grew on me over time that for my "second-half" career I might like to do something that resulted in more water in the streams, grass on the mountains and pollution out of the air.

As I came to see it, the land management issues in the arid West are the result of archaic laws and of practices that are stuck in their ways and need a little boost to move into the modern century. But who wants to hear about that, who cares and why should anybody care? These are remote places that from 10,000 feet up or from a mile away out your car window are still stunning to behold. It sure doesn't look like there is anything wrong. The last thing anybody wants to hear is another rabid environmentalist ranting on and on about the sky falling. So, if it's not self evident today that much of the land on the Colorado Plateau is now worth more to the public that owns it in its natural state rather than in its subsidized extractive state, how shall we teach folks about it? Good literature, I thought, could do the trick.

With the help of my wife, Kirsten Allen, and my friend and ecologist, A.J. Martine, we are launching Torrey House Press. In subsequent entries I want to blog about the process, about our ideas and obstacles, about our experiences and aspirations. I have learned that I think better when I write. Even if I am about the only person reading the posts, I hope to gain something from it. In the meanwhile, as a ranching friend jokes to his neighbor environmentalist types, let's have "more nature, less cowshit!" -Mark Bailey